Through our parent website Hamara Forums, our main website and with help from various kind music lovers, we have “discovered” or re-discovered some very rare and melodious songs of our beloved singer Geeta Dutt ji. These songs were recorded more than fifty plus years ago. Some of them even did not see the light of the day. Through the collaborative effort of our mentors, guides, friends, record collectors and SIRC we have unearthed these hidden gems. This is an effort to compile some of them in the form a single post so that we all can enjoy them in a convenient manner.
1) Vande Mataram : Geeta Roy, G M Durrani, Pramodini Patkar – Vande Mataram, Non film recording, MD: Gyan Dutt, Lyrics: Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay ji. The song was recorded by H.M.V. on record number N 36170 in the year 1950.
2) Badhubaran song:Geeta Dutt got a role in a Bengali film titled Badhu Baran in the year 1967. The film was direceted by Dilip Naag. The film introduced Rakhee (who later became Rakhee Gulzar and went on to become a popular actress in Hindi films) to the film world. The film was made by D.S. Productions and was released at Rupabani, Bharati and Aruna theaters in Kolkata. The story, the screenplay and the lyrics of the film were by Shyamal Gupta. Tne cinematographer of the film was Soumendu Roy. The film’s art direction was done by Satyen Roy Choudhury. The film was edited by Haridas Mahalanbis and Harinarayan Mukherjee. The film was distributed by Chandimata Films Pvt. Ltd.
The film had an impressive star cast in Pradeep Kumar paired with Geeta Dutt. The film also starred Ajoy Biswas, Rakhi Biswas, Bikash Roy, Jahar Ray, Geetali Ray, Jibe Bose, N. Viswanathan, Gita Dey, Amar Ganguly, Abhi Bhattacharya, Bharati Devi etc. Based on the available information, the film did not do to well at the box office. A good amount of interest was among the music and film lovers who watched this film to see their favorite singer Geeta Roy acting in a film. The film ran for about 5 or 6 weeks or so in Kolkata.
The music of the film was composed by the legendary and brilliant composer Kamal Dasgupta and had songs sung by leading Bengali singers Manna Dey , Feroza Begum, Shyamal Mitra, Arati Mukherjee , Arun Datta and of course Geeta Dutt herself. It is a pity that the composer chose to have Geeta sing just one song for this film. The song she sang is “Amar alor o shishu o andhar ja” and was released on record number N 77083. This turned out to be Geeta Dutt’s last recording in a Bengali film (she did sing some non-film Bengali songs till 1971 though).
3) Hindi song in Bengali film: Tere Liye Aaya Hai Le ke Koi Dil – Hindi Song in Bengali Film, Gali Theke Rajpath (1959), Singer: Geeta Dutt, Composer: Sudhin Dasgupta, Lyrics: Naqsh Lyallpuri, Picturised on: Helen, Uttam Kumar
Better quality audio from the 78 RPM record is here
4) Rare Marathi non-film songs: Song number one – Ambabai cha jogwa – Marathi non-film – Geeta Dutt , Lyrics – Anant Gogte , MD – Nishikant Bharti.
Song number two – Jai maartand jai malhaar – Marathi non-film – Geeta Dutt , Lyrics – Anant Gogte , MD – Nishikant Bharti.
5) Un-released song from the film Gauri: This is our biggest discovery so far. Geeta Dutt : Jaani bhromara kaino – Song from the unreleased film Gauri. Only if the film Gauri was made, we would have seen our beloved Geeta ji on the screen singing this song “Jaani Bhromora Keno” recorded on the 13th Nov 1957.
6) First song with Naushad sahab: This is the first song Geeta ji sang for Naushad sahab. It is filmed on Shyama for the film Dillagi (1949). This is a tandem version of the more famous version of the same song sung by Suraiya and Shyam.
7) Video of the Parineeta song: We searched for this video and recently found it on the VHS tape.
We will keep updating this post as more and more songs (audio and video) are discovered.